Here rises the violent sun they’ve been talking about,
over the turquoise city, red and pulseless
as raw meat, close and heatless,
in the moisture-thick morning air, as a lover’s face –
the heat of whose love increases with distance from you:
for the moment – close.
The sun rises here, through the brutalized upper air,
between the ash-green mists above Mt. Eden,
One Tree Hill and the poor-rich minarets
of Auckland, hung with blue weeds;
the mad sun raises her flayed front to you,
like the hot oval face of one through tears
who’d love you – who would love you –
cold gulps of smoke before her lips unwavering,
the Pt. Chevalier isthmus like a tired green log,
ropes of cars along the norwestern causeway,
her traffic of blood, her double reflected
in the still faces of throngs of people
standing at intersections.
And the sun they’ve all been talking about, the sun reviled,
here rises on the turquoise city,
like a carcase, a Christ, an object for desire,
but for one who would love you – she reaches
into the sky-blue prison for her freedom,
she reaches into the naked eye
and she draws back the horizon from the day
and she clothes herself in the sweetest flesh
and she drinks your kisses –
and all things are light to her.
And when her distance so recedes,
so begins an eternity she is by you –
she will not burn you with her tears any more –
for here she rises and
here she sets
to bathing in the moon
